Pope says science can't help people discover their true identity

Published: 2008-01-28

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While the sciences may help people live better in many ways, there is no way they can ever help people discover who they really are, Pope Benedict XVI said. "No science can say who man is, where he came from or where he is going," the pope said Jan. 28 in a speech to participants in a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences. The academies were discussing changing notions of human identity, a subject the pope said is inextricably tied to the question of human dignity "from the embryonic stage to natural death." Human identity cannot be defined simply by looking at a person, studying his physical and intellectual abilities or by summarizing his experiences, the pope said. The human person, he said, is a mystery "marked by otherness: a being created by God, a being in the image of God, a being that is loved and was made to love." The ability to distinguish right from wrong and the freedom to act on those decisions makes the human person different from any other being, the pope said.

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